Seawn
The northernmost territory on Ceilar, Seawn (SHAH oon) is recognized by most as the birthplace of human civilization. A collection of duchies tied loosely together into the Grand Duchy of Seawn, the nation survives primarily through trade, shared defense, and a charismatic ruling house. Once a single city-state known as Sear (SHAR), its inhabitants were forced to flee across the Eternal Mountains to the east when their great city sank into the Immortal Sea during the First Incursion of Chaos. Banding into loosely-organized settlements, the Searian (SHAR ee ahn) humans begin to spread out across the land. Hostile goblin and gnoll tribes, however, began to disrupt trade and communication between the settlements, turning the Searians to shipbuilding as they tried to find ways around the dangerous humanoids that infested their new lands. Their culture disrupted time and again, first by their meeting and alliance with the shipwise Firbolg dwarves of the east, then by the arrival of the Rakasta from the north, and finally being at the center of the Dragon War, the Searians have become survivors, willing to stand up for themselves and do what was necessary to keep their culture alive. Seawn as it is today began about a millennium before the founding of Kærn Kronus when a fishing village in the southernmost regions of modern Seawn became plagued by werewolves from the Gray Wood. A group of explorers led by a chief's son called Ioffren Oakheart arrived on the scene and pushed back the werewolves, finally slaying their Alpha of Alphas and bringing an end to the lycanthrope plague. During the conflict, the bard Sercha Wayminder had a vision of a city on the bay with towers that reached into the clouds. Taking the vision as a sign, Oakheart claimed lordship over the fishing village and renamed it Highspire. Over the following decades as word spread of the great deeds done in the name of Highspire, local chiefs arrived to pledge their fealty to the Oakheart banner, and the Gem of the North grew into the largest city on the continent of Ceilar and remains the capital of Seawn to the current day. The Grand Duchy of Seawn spans from the Lake Seannon at its west to the shores of Lake Aeron to the east, and north to the Starlight Sea and Lake Noren. Its borders encompass the Gray Wood, the Plains of Gold, the Forest of Bone, and the Echoing Mountains. A nation of diverse landscapes, Seawn is both a place of great beauty and great danger. While gnolls haunt the northeast reaches, hostile lizardfolk called "skinks" the west, and goblins nearly every place in between, the greatest dangers come from the Rakastani Imperium to the north and Korvis to the south. The city of Shar, once the southernmost reach of Seawn, was annexed by Korvis during that nation's violent formation. And time and again the Rakasta have invaded from the north, those conflicts eventually resulting in the cold war that continues to this day. In recent history, that stand-off was escalated when the Grand Duke of Seawn, during the tumult of the Third Incursion of Kaos, accepted Rakasta refugees fleeing the Rakshasa, granting them land once belonging to the now-lost Quickling race. Now known as Cho, the nation of allied Rakasta living on the borders of Seawn remains a lingering sore spot in the hungry eyes of the Rakshasa seeking to reclaim their slaves. But despite those dangers, Seawn is not without its allies. The nation of the Gnomes, Barag-Bromel, rests within its mountains, and remains a staunch ally, as do the G'kota lizardmen of the Stoneharrow Fens, who still recognize the Searian people for their aid in liberating them from their evil Skink brethren. And of course, the Firbolgs of the Once-Sundered Mountains to the west have been long allies. And since the nation of Wilder fell to become the Troubled Lands, most of the Warriors of the Broken Tribes have, with the Grand Duchy's blessing, relocated their camps and villages into the borders of Seawn. Some of these friendships and alliances have been recently tested, however. The nation of Kæryn to the south, which in ancient times was born of Searian explorers, has long been Seawn's most dependable ally. However, their increased zeal after the goddess Arwin's survival through the Third Incursion of Kaos and constant stalemate with Korvis left Seawn without their support during the last conflict with the Rakastani Imperium and, more recently, the Troll War that ravaged the duchies from Midway east, causing a breach in trust that still lingers to the current day. The Ædar of the city of Carak, northernmost reach of Barak-Alorak, have closed their doors since the Third Incursion of Kaos, blaming the humans and the Sidh for the devastation it wrought, cutting themselves off from the surface. And the Sidh of the Faerie Isles have all but disappeared from the world in the wake of the war led by the archangel Az, whose prison had been hidden at the heart of their archipelago. Of that race only the Saorsidh, recently restored to the surface world from the homes in the Underdark, remain active on the mainland where most of their newly recovered cities can be found. Category:Locations Category:Gazeteer